Page 30 of Of Song and Scepter
I don’t remember what I did with the book lying on my chest, or if I remembered to extinguish its magic. I don’t know why in that moment I thought of my mother—a Vespyr mermaid I’d never once met.
But I remember the scent of blood. My father’s blood. The tang of iron and salt hung in the air. I walked to the door with a pounding heart and peered out of the room. As if I could save him if I justlooked. But my father, the strongest magic-wielder I knew, was already dead.
Odissa hunched over his body in the hallway, blood gleaming on her hands. A sloppy killer. She lumbered toward me on two legs and, before I could slam the door, lifted me by my throat. His blood smeared my skin, and I kicked my feet.
Odissa pressed her knife against my neck and sneered. Her eyes flicked over my body, snagging on the features that signaled my heritage—my pale white skin, long black hair, and rounded ears. “You’re his, aren’t you?”
I was, but only in name. My father never wanted me. I was a worthless magic-wielder and a wimpy mermaid. But he’d kept me, given me a place in his court. The future he gave me slipped through my fingers, slick as the blood on her hands.
Odissa killed him, and I was next.
I couldn’t find the words to answer her question. I hung limply in her grip, petrified, as I memorized the face of my would-be killer.
“What’s your name?” she pressed, and the knife cut deeper. Warm blood dribbled down my neck.
“Valomir,” I gasped, as if that name could save me here.
“He already got his dues.” She patted an empty pouch on her hip. “And I’ll get mine, don’t you worry. My client might even pay extra. For you.”
“Just kill me and be done with it, death-dealer. You’d be doing the Drink a favor.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the slice. It was better that way—to die young. I was empty and alone, with no prospects, no protector, and the curse of my long siren life stretching eerily before me.
“Got a death wish, do ya? Not every day I meet a Dredgemaw brat who doesn’t want to live.”
The knife’s pressure lessened.
“Do it,” I spat.
With narrow fingers, she reached for my face, pinching my skin. She prodded my cheek, my neck, my arm. When she reached my wrist, my spines flared in warning, slicing the tip of her thumb. She hissed and sucked the blood.
“You’re the half-blood bastard.” She smiled wickedly, revealing rows of pointy teeth. “Look at you, young thing—cowering, alone, ready to die. Tell me, what would your mother think of this?”
I never met my mother. She was a vicious, greedy mermaid from Vespyr, who my father vowed was his worst mistake.
“You are Enna, no?”
I nodded, and she lowered me to the floor. The mermaid was older than me, but not by much. Her skin was a translucent blue, marbled with lighter flecks. From her forehead sprouted her jelly bell, the sack of gelatinous skin shriveling slightly in the air. The barbed tips of her tentacles swished around her knobby pair of legs, flicking side to side.
“You know my mother?” Hope, burning and growing, ate at my insides.
Odissa threw back her head and laughed. The sound was like gravel caught between teeth. “Know her? Sweetfish, she hired me. I’ll take you to her myself.”
Even then, something about Odissa didn’t sit right. But her words stirred the empty chasm of my stomach, awakening something deep and terrifying. Like an animal rising from its slumber, hope stretched and yawned, ready to feed.
With a brush of her hand, she flicked her tentacles over her shoulder and sauntered down the dark hallway.
I should have walked away, should have just let her go. I should have seen it then, the hungry look in her eyes, the way she looked at me like I was the cinnamon cake on my father’s table, the kind he never liked to share.
But instead, I stared into the waning dark and asked, “You’re not going to kill me?”
She glanced back, a coy smile playing on her lips. “No, darling. I just saved your life. Why would I kill you now?”
Her blue eyes become brown. Sharp face softens, darkens. Round ears. A cloud of white hair. Warm hands brush my cheeks.
“Heavens, child,” a raspy voice says. “Now why would I want to kill you? For fainting on my floor? Bah. Happens to the best of us. Trust me, I’d know.”
Pearl holds my face between her palms, frowning. I blink away the memory. But it refuses to clear. I’m halfway here, in this library, and halfway stuck in the Drink.
